Emerging Technologist Review

The general feel of the workplace was enjoyable, and the team I was part of was great. There were a number of interesting events put on in addition to the daily work. I was able to pursue my own ideas for work, which was great, however much of the work provided was quite straightforward and mundane.

The team I was part of were great and it was very easy to settle in. There was a very relaxed atmosphere. Lots of support was given for the work I was doing and it was said on multiple occasions how useful it was for me to be completing these tasks, in particular the ones I had identified proactively.

The team were great at helping me develop my knowledge and understanding of the area, whether by taking time to talk through tasks with me, giving feedback on already completed tasks, and giving me tasks which would be unnecessary for the team's function but gave me a more in-depth experience.

Early on in the internship I was not very busy, most tasks took a short time to complete once understood the first time. Additional tasks provided seemed to be expected to take much longer than they did. I became more busy over time, as I took on more regular tasks, but without the self-identified project I was able to work on I would have had a lot of spare time.

The jobs that I ended up doing regularly did not seem to have a high level of responsibility attached to them. The jobs which held more responsibility I was able to perform to an extent but only as a mock run.

Over the course of the internship I gained a lot of knowledge over a wide variety of topics. It was very possible to find out as much as you wanted about things, even outside the team you are in. I think what I have learnt will be useful to me generally, even though I am not planning to continue in this area.

It was very relaxed around my specific team, but the work still got done. This was fine for the amount of work that I had to do, and made people more approachable. The office was very open and there was no issue with getting up and walking around, or listening to music.

It felt somewhat disorganised during the assessment phase, and communication wasn't great when having to send off many ID documents and contracts. But once on the internship itself everything seemed to run smoothly, with additional speaker and networking events set up which fit well into my diary. In some cases other intern's line managers or mentors were away for long periods, which seems disorganised.

We had two days in London for a training conference at the start of the internship, which included external speakers running team building activities. We also were asked to complete online training courses during the internship. Training was done in-situ for specific team tasks. We were able to get meetings with directors in the company to explore the other areas.

It seems like a great place to work, mainly because of how much flexibility there is and the generally relaxed nature. The salary also seems very generous, even for an intern. However I find myself more interested in areas outside of financial technology, which I would prefer to pursue, and that Barclays do not offer.

The two initial days training in London allowed all of the interns to get to know each other quite well, which was really good for the internship, as you could turn up to work and already see people you know around the place. This also led to a social scene for hanging out after work or organising trips to the cinema or pubs and so on.

The accommodation I found was not on the cheap end of the scale, and took me quite far away from the workplace. As such, I didn't put much money or time into socialising. There seems to be a lot of housing in the nearby area but it was difficult to identify a suitable location for a short term let.

The area local to where I worked is not very student orientated and so I think that contributed to the lack of nightlife. There were pubs, but given the location's small size and proximity to bigger cities I believe the typical option would be to leave the town for the night out.

There were some opportunities available outside of work which were associated with the company, but they were not particularly easy to get involved with, due to mostly poor explanation of how to find out about things and register interest.